Tsagaan Sar L.A. 2016

Celebrating Mongolian New Year during Superbowl 50

Two days ago, we had the Superbowl here in America, and the Broncos beat the Panthers. I didn’t see the kickoff though, because I was celebrating Lunar New Year the Mongolian Way.

Elders of the L.A. Mongolian community gathered at Golden Mongolia restaurant

On February 7 at noon there was a Tsagaan Sar celebration at Golden Mongolia restaurant, located in L.A.’s Koreatown near the Wilshire-Vermont Metro station. More properly, it wasn’t an actual Tsagaan Sar celebration. It was a celebration for Bitüün (Битүүн), the name of the day before Tsagaan Sar. Tsagaan Sar started yesterday, Monday February 8 and is continuing until tomorrow, Wednesday February 10. (That's three days long - and in the countryside where I was, the festivities often went on a whole week.)

In Asian culture, each new year is associated with one of twelve animals. What most Americans don’t know is that each year is also associated with one of five elements - earth, water, fire, wood, metal. 12 animals x 5 elements = 60 combinations, which makes for a traditional “century” of 60 years. This year is the year of the Fire Monkey, or Gal Bich Jil (Гал бич жил).

The Los Angeles Mongolian Association holds a celebration for the ахмад (ahmad), or elders of the community, every year around Tsagaan Sar. I got to speak to some of these elders, some of whom were visiting from Mongolia. (I can only imagine their surprise when they arrived here and it was 75° F (° C)!) I went to the celebration last year, and knew they would have one again this year, so I made sure to check the time. Unfortunately, the Mongolian community and its activities aren’t always well-publicized around L.A.

Yes, we also had huushuur, and they even put the plate right in front of me!

This little girl guards the gifts that have been prepared for the older Mongolian guests.

Lunch contained plenty of Mongolian holiday staples, such as buuz and even airag, and was followed by singing and dancing (mostly waltzing, naturally). I sang "Би Монгол эр хүн" ("I am a Mongolian Man") with the help of the karaoke machine. They also made me make a brief speech.

White guys

More to my surprise, I also met two other white guys at the celebration. In fact one of them was wearing a deel - a very old-fashioned deel, as you can tell by the cut of the chest flap. His deel had a straight diagonal slash across the front, instead of the right-angle corner on more modern styles. As it turns out, they play Mongols in historical reenactments, so they knew quite a bit about Mongolian history already. They’re planning their first visit to Mongolia later this year, so wish them luck!

Group photo

The Twelve Animals of the Zodiac

Or, Camel vs. Mouse

It's almost time for the Цагаан Сар (Tsagaan Sar), the old Mongolian New Year, so it's soon going to become the Модон Хонины Жил (Modon Honiny Jil), or the Year of the Wooden Sheep. In America the twelve-year cycle of animals is often called the Chinese Zodiac or Chinese Horoscope, but it is found far beyond China. The practice of twelve-year cycles with animals presiding over each of the years is found not only in Sinosphere nations like Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, but also among the Thai, Tibetans, Kazakhs, ancient Persians, and even the ancient Bulgars.

These far-spread cultures use much the same assemblage of beasts, but here and there they swap one animal for another. Instead of the rabbit, the Vietnamese have the cat,¹ and instead of the tiger, the Kazakhs have the snow leopard. More bizarrely, the Kazakhs also replaced the dragon with the snail.²

Of course, this system is used in Mongolia too. The cycle for the Mongolians is:

1. хулгана (hulgana) - mouse
2. үхэр (üher) - cattle
3. бар (bar) - tiger
4. туулай (tuulai) - rabbit
5. луу (luu) - dragon
6. могой (mogoi) - snake
7. морь (mori) - horse
8. хонь (honi) - sheep
9. бич (bich) - ape
10. тахиа (tahia) - chicken
11. нохой (nohoi) - dog
12. гахай (gahai) - pig

The practice of naming years after animals predates history. Throughout Chinese history, Chinese scholars have not even been sure that the practice is Chinese. In fact, some suggested that the practice was borrowed from the nomads to the north!³ While the actual origin of the practice is a mystery, it has not stopped people from coming up with their own stories about it - usually involving a god or Buddha judging animals. The Mongolians are no exception. The following little story is the explanation I heard in Mongolia.

The Mouse, the Camel, and the Twelve-Year Cycle

Once upon a time the Buddha decided to assign names to the years of the 12-year cycle and called a conference of animals. Thirteen species applied for the twelve positions available. After assigning animals to eleven years, it came down to the camel and the mouse. The Buddha couldn't decide between them, so he proposed a tie-breaker: Whoever saw the morning sunlight first would get a year named after him. The next day, the camel faced east and stretched his neck to see as far to the horizon as he could. The mouse, however, climbed on the camel's back and faced west. While the camel was still waiting for the sun, the mouse saw the sunlight strike the peaks of the western mountains and cried out.⁴ Thus the mouse won, and he got a place in the zodiac instead of the camel. However the Buddha decided to give the camel a consolation prize. He declared that the camel would have:

1. a mouse's ears
2. a cow's stomach
3. a tiger's paws
4. a rabbit's nose
5. a dragon's body
6. a snakes eyes
7. a horse's mane (albeit underneath his neck)
8. a sheep's wool
9. an ape's hump
10. a rooster's crest
11. a dog's legs
12. and a pig's tail

I don't personally see the resemblances, but who am I to question the Buddha? Anyway, the camel, so gifted with the attributes of all twelve of the other animals, thus represents the whole twelve-year cycle.

Happy Tsagaan Sar! Сайхан шинэлээрэй!

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1. “Year of the Cat,” http://www.viethoroscope.com/year-of-the-cat/. Accessed Feb 16, 2015.
2. Kazakh zodiac: “Architect tells story behind Almaty’s renowned fountain,” (Foster, Hal - http://www.universalnewswires.com/centralasia/viewstory.aspx?id=2278. Accessed Feb 16, 2015) and "The historical information of the architectural complex" (http://www.library.kz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=49. Accessed Feb 16, 2015). Interestingly, the words for dragon or snail in several languages sound similar. Kazakh ұлу (ulw) and Kyrgyz  үлүл (ülül) mean "snail," while Chinese (Mandarin) lóng, Kyrgyz улу (ulu), and Mongolian луу (luu) mean "dragon." Mongolian has water spirits named лус (lus), and Tibetan has water spirits named klu which are snake-like (more info at James Alvarez's "The Klu: Their Roles Within the Shamanic and Buddhist Contexts," https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/relb2054_jea6c/2010/11/06/the-klu-their-roles-within-the-shamanic-and-buddhist-contexts/). Note that Mongolian луу and лус must be borrowed because native words almost never begin with L. So there may be some secret connection between snails and dragons. Or maybe the snail took advantage of phonetic confusion to usurp the dragon. Those clever snails! (For your curiosity, the Mongolian word for snail is эмгэн хумс, "old woman fingernail.")
   
3. I have read around the nets that Zhao Yi 赵翼 ascribed a nomadic origin to the zodiac, but I have not found anything that Mr. Zhao himself wrote.
   
4. This, by the way, is true. If the sun rises over a plain, mountains to the west will light up before the sun itself appears, and conversely, at dusk mountains to the east will stay lit up after the sun itself is no longer visible.
   

Tsagaan Sar

Tsagaan Sar, the biggest holiday of the Mongolian year, is the Mongolian version of Lunar New Year familiar from other East Asian cultures. As such its date varies from year to year according to the moon. This year it was scheduled for February 22-24. This is later than Chinese New Year, so they must be looking at different moons, I guess. That date is approximate though, as it really starts the night of Feb. 21 and then fades out through March. Like Christmas in America, the "Tsagaan Sar season" actually begins even earlier when you take into account all the preparation that goes into play. Over a week before it began, I helped my hashaa family make 1600 buuz. The primary mode of celebration is by visiting people's houses and gorging oneself in a way that would embarrass Thanksgiving. For example, I visited 26 or 27 households (I've forgotten) and probably ate over 100 buuz over the 6 days beginning on Feb. 21. I was actually a bit overenthusiastic, because I later found out most people only visited a half dozen houses or so, but in my ignorance I ambitiously attempted to visit every teacher. Not that anyone is complaining.

A Tsagaan Sar table arrangement: boov, sheep's back, vodka, juice, fruit,  kimchi (replacing traditional pickled vegetables), potato salad, and buuz

Another setup. Notice on the back wall, the horsehead fiddle and the Chinggis Khaan tapestry. Half the homes I've been to have one of these tapestries.

L-R: a boov pyramid, sheep's back, and bottle of vodka - perhaps the 3 most important items

An urn of airag

An ornamental snuff bottle and purse/wallet

People at a Tsagaan Sar feast

One of the highlights was receiving a new deel from my hashaa family, on which people proceeded to spill tea, airag, and vodka. Another one was when my counterpart took me to visit her inlaws, who are camel ranchers. So, I got to ride a camel named "Lik."

Me, wearing a deel and riding a camel